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"Bro, you should just hit that Forget about Jase God, that is one candy-coated honeybunny" As alked, I kept taking glances at her through the crowd, quick snapshots: a photographic series entitled Perfection Stands Still While Mortals Walk Past As I got closer, I thoughtafter all Maybe she’d received a surprise or a gift or so She couldn’t seem to close her , still trying to see astoo obvious It wasn’t even that she was so pretty She was just so awesome, and in the literal sense And then ere too far past her, too ot close enough to hear her speak or understand whatever the hilarious surprise had been Ben shook his head, because he had seen me see her a thousand times, and he was used to it

"Honestly, she’s hot, but she’s not that hot You knoho’s seriously hot?"

"Who?" I asked

"Lacey," he said, as Margo’s other best friend "Also your , and forgive me, but I swear to God I was like, man, I wish I was Q And also, I wish my cheeks had penises" I elbowed hio, because she was the only legend who lived next door to elman, whose six-syllable name was often spoken in its entirety with a kind of quiet reverence Margo Roth Spiegelh school like a su in a broken-down house in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, taught Margo how to play the guitar Margo Roth Spiegel with the circus--they thought she had potential on the trapeze Margo Roth Spiegelman, who drank a cup of herbal tea with the Mallionaires backstage after a concert in St Louis while they drank whiskey Margo Roth Spiegel the bouncer she was the bassist’s girlfriend, and didn’t they recognize her, and coelo back there and ask the bassist to take one look at irlfriend or he wishes I was, and then the bouncer did so, and then the bassist said "yeah that’s irlfriend let her in the show," and then later the bassist wanted to hook up with her and she rejected the bassist from the Mallionaires

The stories, when they were shared, inevitably ended with, I mean, can you believe it? We often could not, but they always proved true

And then ere at our lockers Radar was leaning against Ben’s locker, typing into a handheld device

"So you’re going to prom," I said to him He looked up, and then looked back down

"I’ the Omnictionary article about a forht someone deleted the entire entry and then replaced it with the sentence ‘Jacques Chirac is a gay,’ which as it happens is incorrect both factually and gra-time editor of this online user-created reference source called Omnictionary His whole life is devoted to theof Omnictionary This was but one of several reasons why his having a pro to pro up It was a well-known fact that I was opposed to pro about any of it appealed to , not the dresses, and definitely not the rented tuxedo Renting a tuxedo seemed to me an excellent way to contract some hideous disease from its previous tenant, and I did not aspire to becoin with pubic lice

"Bro," Ben said to Radar, "the freshhoneys know about the Bloody Ben story" Radar put the handheld away finally and nodded sy strategies are either to purchase a prom date on the Internet or fly to Missouri and kidnap so Ben that "honeybunny" sounded more sexist and lame than retro-cool, but he refused to abandon the practice He called his own ela if she knows anybody," Radar said "Although getting you a date to pro you a date to prom is so hard that the hypothetical idea itself is actually used to cut diamonds," I added

Radar tapped a locker tith his fist to express his approval, and then ca you a date to proovernment believes the problem cannot be solved with diplo to think of another one e all three simultaneously saw the human-shaped container of anabolic steroids known as Chuck Parson walking toward us with soanized sports, because to do so would distract frooal of his life: to one day be convicted of hoots," he called

"Chuck," I answered, as friendly as I could iven us any serious trouble in a couple years--someone in cool kid land laid down the edict that ere to be left alone So it was a little unusual for him even to talk to us

Maybe because I spoke and ainst the lockers on either side of h for me to conteo and Jase?"

"Uh," I said I thought of everything I knew about theel at the tail end of last year They were both going to University of Florida next year Jase got a baseball scholarship there He was never over at her house, except to pick her up She never acted as if she liked him all that much, but then she never acted as if she liked anyone all that ," I said finally

"Don’t shit rowled

"I barely even know her," I said, which had become true

He considered my answer for a minute, and I tried hard to stare at his close-set eyes He nodded very slightly, pushed off the lockers, and walked away to attend his first-period class: The Care and Feeding of Pectoral Muscles The second bell rang One minute to class Radar and I had calc; Ben had finite mathematics The classrooether, the three of us in a row, trusting that the tide of classh to let us by, and it did

I said, "Getting you a date to pro at a thousand typewriters for a thousand years would never once type ‘I will go to pro hirand for Radar to ask her"

Radar nodded his head slowly "It’s true, Q Your grandet about Chuck, to talk about proive a shit about pro really s and not the bad ones We were in the business of mutual amusement, and ere reasonably prosperous

I spent the next three hours in classroo not to look at the clocks above various blackboards, and then looking at the clocks, and then being amazed that only a few minutes had passed since I last looked at the clock I’d had nearly four years of experience looking at these clocks, but their sluggishness never ceased to surprise If I aht for the hallowed halls of Winter Park High School, where a day has been known to last a thousand years

But as much as it felt like third-period physics would never end, it did, and then I was in the cafeteria with Ben Radar had fifth-period lunch with ether alone, a couple seats between us and a group of dra ood," I said He nodded distractedly "What’s wrong?" I asked

"Nuffing," he said through a mouthful of pizza He sed "I know you think it’s duo to proo; 3 If I’m not mistaken, you haven’t even asked anyone"

"I asked Cassie Hiney during ly Ben reached into his shorts and slid a heavily folded piece of paper to o to pro

with Frank Sorry!

--C

I refolded it and slid it back across the table I could re paper football on these tables "That sucks," I said

"Yeah, whatever" The walls of sound felt like they were closing in on us, and ere silent for a while, and then Ben looked at et soto be in the Guinness Book of World Records under the category ‘Most Honeybunnies Ever Pleased’"

I laughed I was thinking about how Radar’s parents actually were in the Guinness Book when I noticed a pretty African-A above us It took uess-girlfriend